John Kenneth Galbraith | The Economist John Kenneth Galbraith John Kenneth Galbraith, economist and public intellectual, died on April 29th, aged 97 May 4th 2006 Tweet Corbis ABOVE a large oak bookcase in John Kenneth Galbraith's elegant sitting room in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a framed sampler was displayed. “Galbraith's First Law”, read the meticulous red and blue cross-stitch: “Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue.” He thoroughly believed it. Save for his humble origins on a farm in Ontario, little about Mr Galbraith or his life was modest. At six foot eight, he was a giant. Intellectually he was equally towering, a man who spent more than seven decades either on the stage of American public policy—as a bureaucrat in Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, a confidante of John Kennedy and adviser to countless other Democrats—or loudly lambasting Washington from offstage left, as a Harvard professor. For several of those decades, Mr Galbraith—much to the chagrin of his academic colleagues—could claim to be the best-known economist in the world. His books, more than 40 of them, were spectacularly successful.

All this made him an extraordinary public intellectual. But for many, particularly on America's left, he was much more. Mr Galbraith embodied a creed (a broad scepticism of markets and unshakeable belief in a strong state to balance them) and an era, the 1960s, when that sort of liberalism reached its peak. In many eyes, and perhaps his own, Mr Galbraith was America's Great Liberal Economist, the intellectual heir to John Maynard Keynes, whose contributions to economics are underappreciated by a profession obsessed with mathematical formulae. Related items J.K. Galbraith: Unconventional wisdom Apr 7th 2005 He was certainly Keynes's heir in his passion for the trenches of public policy, his recognition that economics could and should be accessible, and his way with words. A devotee of Trollope and Evelyn Waugh—“Scoop” was a favourite—Mr Galbraith strove to perfect his prose, reworking each passage at least five times. “It was usually on about the fourth day that I put in that note of spontaneity for which I am known,” he once admitted. Bons mots, however, seemed to come naturally to him.

“Economists are economical, among other things, of ideas; most make those of their graduate days last a lifetime.” “Wealth is not without its advantages, and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive.” As Kennedy's ambassador to India, Mr Galbraith preferred to write to the president direct: sending letters through the State Department, he told Kennedy, was “like fornicating through a mattress”. Where Mr Galbraith differed from Keynes, and from other Great Economists such as Milton Friedman, was that he produced no robust economic theories. Robert Skidelsky, Keynes's biographer, thought that he lacked “the theoretical brilliance, or perhaps merely interest”. In fact, Mr Galbraith disdained a theoretical approach to economics. This was more than a simple aversion to mathematical formulae. The greatest problem with economics, he argued, was its “wilful denial of the presence of power and political interests”. By positing an idealised world of perfect competition, economic theory assumed away the factors that drove societies. Mr Galbraith was thus less an economist than a mixture of sociologist, political scientist and journalist.

His three most influential books were snapshots of the America of their time. In “American Capitalism” (1952), giant firms were balanced by the “countervailing power” of, for instance, unions; in “The Affluent Society” (1958), massive private consumption coexisted with public decay; in “The New Industrial State” (1967), producers held all the economic power and competition was irrelevant. Time proved especially unkind to that idea. His faith in government, born of the searing experience of the Depression, verged sometimes on the bizarre. In 1973, for instance, he argued that America's few-hundred biggest companies should be brought into public ownership. Yet if Mr Galbraith was often wrong, he nonetheless gave much to American public life. “The Affluent Society” not only changed the way the country viewed itself, but gave new phrases to the language: “Conventional wisdom”, “the bland leading the bland”, “private opulence and public squalor”. Amartya Sen, the Indian economist, said that reading it was like reading “Hamlet”: “You realise where [all the quotations] came from”.

Competition in Gstaad Long after Mr Galbraith's brand of big-government liberalism fell out of favour, he remained its standard-bearer. His acerbic comments on public policy were always worth reading. In private matters he was not partisan, and could count Bill Buckley, the conservative intellectual, among his closest friends. In the local bookstore in Gstaad, where they both went skiing, they would battle to get their books the best spot in the window. A decade ago, Mr Galbraith lamented that old age brought an annoying affliction he called the “Still Syndrome”. People would constantly note that he was “still” doing things: still “interested in politics” when he showed up at a meeting, “still imbibing” when he had a drink and “still that way” when his eyes lit up on seeing a beautiful woman. The Still Syndrome lasted an immodestly long time. Its passing has left America poorer.

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Where the government is necessary, I'm for that. I'm deeply suspicious of somebody who says, "I'm in favor of privatization," or, "I'm deeply in favor of public ownership." I'm in favor of whatever works in the particular case. Quotes[ edit ] There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting. When you see reference to a new paradigm you should always, under all circumstances, take cover. I believe the greatest error in economics is in seeing the economy as a stable, immutable structure. In the usual (though certainly not in every) public decision on economic policy, the choice is between courses that are almost equally good or equally bad. It is the narrowest decisions that are most ardently debated. If the world is lucky enough to enjoy peace, it may even one day make the discovery, to the horror of doctrinaire free-enterprisers and doctrinaire planners alike, that what is called capitalism and what is called socialism are both capable of working quite well. "The American Economy: Its Substance and Myth," quoted in Years of the Modern (1949), ed. J.W. Chase You roll back the stones, and you find slithering things.

That is the world of Richard Nixon . Adlai Stevenson speech, Los Angeles (1956), written by Galbraith There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting. The New York Times Magazine ( 1960-10-09 ) Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. Letter to John F. Kennedy ( 1962-03-02 ), printed in Galbraith's Ambassador's Journal (1969) In the really hard cases you're choosing between the disastrous and the catastrophic, and it's hard to tell someone which one is which. Quoted by Graham Allison , in A Conversation with Henry Kissinger . [1] Total physical and mental inertia are highly agreeable, much more so than we allow ourselves to imagine. A beach not only permits such inertia but enforces it, thus neatly eliminating all problems of guilt. It is now the only place in our overly active world that does.

Foreword to The Beach Book by Gloria Steinem (1963); reprinted in Galbraith's A View from the Stands (1986) Clearly the most unfortunate people are those who must do the same thing over and over again, every minute, or perhaps twenty to the minute. They deserve the shortest hours and the highest pay. Made to Last (1964), ch. 4 People are the common denominator of progress. So, paucis verbis, no improvement is possible with unimproved people, and advance is certain when people are liberated and educated. It would be wrong to dismiss the importance of roads, railroads, power plants, mills, and the other familiar furniture of economic development. At some stages of development — the stage that India and Pakistan have reached, for example — they are central to the strategy of development. But we are coming to realize, I think, that there is a certain sterility in economic monuments that stand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first. Economic Development (1964), ch. 2 Then the shit hit the fan. Ambassador's Journal (1969), p. 45.

Galbraith claimed to have originally coined this phrase in A Life In Our Times (1981), p. 274 Meetings are a great trap. … they are indispensable when you don't want to do anything. Ambassador's Journal (1969), p. 84 You will find that [the] State [Department] is the kind of organisation which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly too. Quoted in conversation with Charles Frankel, High on Foggy Bottom: an outsider's inside view of the Government (1969), p. 11 In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability. The New York Times Magazine ( 1970-06-07 ) Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. Economics, Peace and Laughter (1971), p. 50 Do not be alarmed by simplification, complexity is often a device for claiming sophistication, or for evading simple truths.

The Age of Uncertainty (1977), BBC Television series (also published in book form, non verbatim version) Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much cherished aspect of academic freedom. "H.L. Mencken," The Washington Post ( 1980-09-14 ); reprinted in A View from the Stands (1986) Any country that has Milton Friedman as an adviser has nothing to fear from a few million Arabs. on Friedman's advising of the Israeli government, "The Private Man and the Public Life; Interview With Galbraith", The Washington Post' ( 1981-04-26 ) Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy—what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.

"Recession Economics," New York Review of Books, Volume 29, Number 1 ( 1982-02-04 ) Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence. The Sydney Morning Herald ( 1982-05-22 ) Any consideration of the life and larger social existence of the modern corporate man... begins and also largely ends with the effect of one all-embracing force. That is organization — the highly structured assemblage of men, and now some women, of which he is a part. It is to this, at the expense of family, friends, sex, recreation and sometimes health and effective control of alcoholic intake, that he is expected to devote his energies. "Corporate Man," The New York Times ( 1984-01-22 ) Increasingly in recent times we have come first to identify the remedy that is most agreeable, most convenient, most in accord with major pecuniary or political interest, the one that reflects our available faculty for action; then we move from the remedy so available or desired back to a cause to which that remedy is relevant.

"The Convenient Reverse of Logic in Our Time," commencement address, American University (1984); reprinted in A View from the Stands (1986) In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone. The Guardian (UK, 1989-07-28 ) In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong. The Guardian (UK, 1989-07-28 ) There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth. The Guardian (UK, 1989-07-28 ) In the first place I identify this ["the equilibrium of poverty"] with primitive agriculture, and two factors have been at work there. One is, of course, population growth. If you were a poor farmer in India, Pakistan, or in much of Africa, you would want as many sons as possible as your social security. They would keep you out of the hot sun and give you some form of subsistence in your old age.

So, you have pressure for population growth that is, itself, the result of the extreme economic insecurity. This is something which hasn't been sufficiently emphasized. Interview with John Newark (1990) from Interviews with John Kenneth Galbraith (2004), ed. James Ronald Stanfield and Jacqueline Bloom Stanfield [2] One must always have in mind one simple fact — there is no literate population in the world that is poor, and there is no illiterate population that is anything but poor. Interview with John Newark (1990) from Interviews with John Kenneth Galbraith (2004), ed. James Ronald Stanfield and Jacqueline Bloom Stanfield We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money, the poor because they had much. The Guardian (UK, 1991-11-20 ) The great dialectic in our time is not, as anciently and by some still supposed, between capital and labor; it is between economic enterprise and the state. A History of Economics (1991), ch. 21 People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy.

The Guardian (UK, 1992-05-23 ) There's a certain part of the contented majority who love anybody who is worth a billion dollars. The Guardian (UK, 1992-05-23 ) The contented and economically comfortable have a very discriminating view of government. Nobody is ever indignant about bailing out failed banks and failed savings and loans associations... But when taxes must be paid for the lower middle class and poor, the government assumes an aspect of wickedness. The Guardian (UK, 1992-05-23 ) We now in the United States have more security guards for the rich than we have police services for the poor districts. If you're looking for personal security, far better to move to the suburbs than to pay taxes in New York. The Guardian (UK, 1992-05-23 ) It is my guiding confession that I believe the greatest error in economics is in seeing the economy as a stable, immutable structure. A Journey Through Economic Time (1994) Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue.

Interview with Lorie Conway (1997) from Interviews with John Kenneth Galbraith (2004) ed. James Ronald Stanfield and Jacqueline Bloom Stanfield. Conway saw these words on a framed needlepoint, entitled "Galbraith's First Law," at Galbraith's home When you see reference to a new paradigm you should always, under all circumstances, take cover. Because ever since the great tulipmania in 1637, speculation has always been covered by a new paradigm. There was never a paradigm so new and so wonderful as the one that covered John Law and the South Sea Bubble — until the day of disaster. Quoted in Ben Laurance and William Keegan, "Galbraith on crashes, Japan and Walking Sticks," The Observer ( 1998-06-21 ) Let's begin with capitalism, a word that has gone largely out of fashion. The approved reference now is to the market system. This shift minimizes — indeed, deletes — the role of wealth in the economic and social system. And it sheds the adverse connotation going back to Marx .

Instead of the owners of capital or their attendants in control, we have the admirably impersonal role of market forces. It would be hard to think of a change in terminology more in the interest of those to whom money accords power. They have now a functional anonymity. " Free Market Fraud" , The Progressive, January 1999) Hitler also anticipated modern economic policy . . . by recognizing that a rapid approach to full employment was only possible if it was combined with wage and price controls. That a nation oppressed by economic fear would respond to Hitler as Americans did to F.D.R. is not surprising. As quoted in Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography (1991), by John Toland, also quoted in "Repatriation — The Dark Side of World War II (1995) by Jacob G. Hornberger The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

“Stop the Madness,” Interview with Rupert Cornwell, Toronto Globe and Mail (6 July 2002) (see ) The drive toward complex technical achievement offers a clue to why the US is good at space gadgetry and bad at slum problems. The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 )[ edit ] In the autumn of 1929 the mightiest of Americans were, for a brief time, revealed as human beings. Writing is a long and lonesome business; back of the problems in thought and composition hover always the awful questions: Is this the page that shows the empty shell? Is it here and now that they find me out? Introduction, Section I, p. ix I never enjoyed writing a book more; indeed, it is the only one I remember in no sense as a labor but as a joy. Introduction, Section I, p. x SOME YEARS, like some poets,and politicians and some lovely women, are singled out for fame far beyond the common lot, and 1929 was clearly such a year. Chapter I, A Year To Remember, p. 1 No one was responsible for the great Wall Street crash.

No one engineered the speculation that preceded it. Both were the product of free choice and decision of hundreds of thousands of individuals. Chapter I, A Year To Remember, p. 4 In the autumn of 1929 the mightiest of Americans were, for a brief time, revealed as human beings. Chapter I, A Year To Remember, p. 5 This view that the action of the Federal Reserve authorities in 1927 was responsible for the speculation and collapse which followed has﻿ never been seriously shaken. There are reasons why it is attractive. It is simple, and it exonerates both the American people and the economic system from substantial blame... Yet the explanation obviously assumes that people will always speculate if only they can get the money to finance it. Nothing could be farther from the case. There were times before and there has been long periods since when credit was plentiful and cheap -- far cheaper than in 1927-29 -- and when speculation was negligible. Nor was speculation out of control after 1927, except that it was beyond the reach of men who did not want in the least to control it. The explanation is a tribute only to a recurrent preference, in economic matters, for formidable nonsense.

Chapter I, "Vision and Boundless Hope and Optimism" p. 10 Of all the weapons in the Federal Reserve arsenal, words were the the most unpredictable in their consequences. Chapter III, Something Should Be Done?, Section IV, p. 38 In 1929 the discovery of the wonders of the geometric series struck Wall Street with a force comparable to the invention of the wheel. Chapter IV, In Goldman Sachs We Trust, Section VI, p. 63 To a few alarmed observers it seemed as though Wall Street were by way of devouring all the money of the entire world. However, in accordance with the cultural practice, as the summer passed, the sound and responsible spokesmen decried not the increase in brokers' loans, but those who insisted on attaching significance to this trend. Chapter V, The Twilight of Illusion, Section I, p. 68 It was not hard to persuade people that the market was sound; as always in such times they asked only that the disturbing voices of doubt be muted and that there be tolerably frequent expressions of confidence. Chapter V, The Twilight of Illusion, Section II, p. 70 The values of a society totally preoccupied with making money are not altogether reassuring.

Chapter V, The Twilight of Illusion, Section IV, p. 76 However, it is safe to say that at the peak in 1929 the number of active speculators was less — and probably was much less — than a million. Chapter V, The Twilight of Illusion, Section V, p. 83 In these maters, as often in our culture, it is far, far better to be wrong in a respectable way than to be right for the wrong reasons. Chapter V, The Twilight of Illusion, Section VII, p. 85 Of all the mysteries of the stock exchange there is none so impenetrable as why there should be a buyer for everyone who seeks to sell. Chapter VI, The Crash, p. 104 No one knew, but it cannot be stressed too frequently, that for effective incantation knowledge is neither necessary nor assumed. Chapter V , The Crash, Section VIII, p. 106 The Coolidge Bull market was a remarkable phenomenon. The ruthlessness of its liquidation was, in its own way, equally remarkable.

Chapter VI , Things Become More Serious, Section I, p 109 To the man who held stock on margin, disaster had only one face and that was falling prices. But now prices were to be allowed to fall. The speculator's only comfort, henceforth, was that his ruin would be accomplished in an orderly and becoming manner. Chapter VI , Things Become More Serious, Section II, p 110 Our political life favors the extremes of speech; the man who is gifted in the arts of abuse is bound to be a notable, if not always a great figure. Chapter VI , Things Become More Serious, Section II, p 110 The market had reasserted itself as an impersonal force beyond the power of any person to control, and, while this is the way markets are supposed to be, it was horrible. Chapter VI , Things Become More Serious, Section II, p 111 Despite a flattering supposition to the contrary, people come readily to terms with power. There is little reason to think that the power of the great bankers, while they were assumed to have it, was much resented.

But as the ghosts of numerous tyrants, from Julius Caesar to Benito Mussolini will testify, people are very hard on those who, having had power, lose it or are destroyed. Then anger at past arrogance is joined with contempt for the present weakness. The victim or his corpse is made to suffer all available indignities. Chapter VI , Things Become More Serious, Section IV, p 115 A banker need not be popular; indeed a good banker in a healthy capitalist society should probably be much disliked. People do not wish to trust their money to a hail-fellow-well-met but to a misanthrope who can say no. Chapter VI , Things Become More Serious, Section IV, p 115 Men have been swindled by other men on many occasions. The autumn of 1929 was, perhaps, the first occasion when men succeeded on a large scale in swindling themselves. Chapter VII, Things Become More Serious, Section VIII, p. 130 Clerks in downtown hotels were said to be asking guests whether they wished the room for sleeping or jumping. Two men jumped hand-in-hand from a high window in the Ritz. They had a joint account.

Chapter VII, Things Become More Serious, Section VIII, p. 131-132 One of the uses of depression is the exposure of what auditors fail to find. Chapter VII , Aftermath I, Section II, p 135 Men meet together for many reasons in the course of business. They need to instruct or persuade each other. They must agree on a course of action. They find thinking in public more productive or less painful than thinking in private. But there are at least as many reasons for meetings to transact no business. Meetings are held because men seek companionship or, at a minimum, wish to escape the tedium of solitary duties. They yearn for the prestige which accrues to the man who presides over meetings, and this leads them to convoke assemblages over which they can preside. Finally, there is the meeting which is called not because there is business to be done, but because it is necessary to create the impression that business is being done. Such meetings are more than a substitute for action. They are widely regarded as action. Chapter VII , Aftermath I, Section IV, p 139 In the early days of the crash it was widely believed that Jesse L.

Livermore , a Bostonian with a large and unquestionably exaggerated reputation for bear operations, leading a syndicate that was driving the market down. Chapter VIII, Aftermath I, Section III, p. 141 However, Hoover had converted the simple business ritual of reassurance into a major instrument of public policy. Chapter VIII , Aftermath II, Section I, p 144 Our political tradition sets great store by the generalized symbol of evil. This is the wrongdoer whose wrongdoing will be taken by the public to be the secret propensity of a whole community or class. Chapter VIII , Aftermath II, Section IV, p 154 Wall Street's crime, in the eyes of its classical enemies, was less its power than its morals. Chapter VIII , Aftermath II, Section IV, p 155 In accordance with an old but not outworn tradition, it might now be wise for all to conclude that crime, or even misbehavior, is the act of an individual, not the predisposition of a class. Chapter VIII , Aftermath II, Section VI, p 165 Moreover, regulatory bodies, like the people who comprise them, have a marked life cycle.

In youth they are vigorous, aggressive, evangelistic, and even intolerant. Later they mellow, and in old age — after a matter of ten or fifteen years — they become, with some exceptions, either an arm of the industry they are regulating or senile. Chapter VIII , Aftermath II, Section VI, p 165 The fact was that American enterprise in the twenties had opened its hospitable arms to an exceptional number of promoters, grafters, swindlers, impostors, and frauds. Chapter IX , Cause and Consequence, Section V, p 178 Both of these measures were on the side of increasing spendable income, though unfortunately they were largely without effect. The tax reductions were negligible except in the higher income brackets; businessmen who promised to maintain investment and wages, in accordance with a well-understood convention, considered the promise binding only for the period within which it was not financially disadvantageous to do so. Chapter IX , Cause and Consequence, Section V, p 183 The advisers and counselors were not, however, analyzing the danger or even the possibility. They were serving only as the custodians of bad memories.

Chapter IX , Cause and Consequence, Section V, p 184 And after they have started the action will always look, as it did to the frightened men in the Federal Reserve Board in February 1929, like a decision in favor of immediate as against ultimate death. As we have seen, the immediate death not only has the disadvantage of being immediate but of identifying the executioner. Chapter IX , Cause and Consequence, Section VII, p 190 At best, in such depression times, monetary policy is a feeble reed on which to lean. Chapter X, Cause and Consequence, p. 190 But there is still a considerable difference between a failure to do enough that is right and a determination to do much that is wrong. Chapter IX , Cause and Consequence, Section VIII, p 192 But now, as throughout history, financial capacity and political perspicacity are inversely correlated. Long run salvation by men of business has never been highly regarded if it means disturbance of orderly life and convenience in the present. So inaction will be advocated in the present even though it means deep trouble in the future. Here, at least equally with communism , lies the threat to capitalism .

It is what causes men who know that things are going quite wrong to say that things are fundamentally sound. Chapter X, Cause and Consequence, p. 199 Authorship of any sort is a fantastic indulgence of the ego . It is well no doubt, to reflect on how much one owes to others. Foreword p. x Wealth is not without its advantages, and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive. Chapter 1, Section I, p. 13 The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events. Chapter 2, Section IV, p. 21 Ideas are inherently conservative . They yield not to the attack of other ideas but to the massive onslaught of circumstance with which they cannot contend. Chapter 2, Section VI, p. 26 Even the word depression itself was the terminological product of an effort to soften the connotation of deep trouble. In the last century, the term crisis was normally employed. With time, however, this acquired the connotation of the misfortune it described. Chapter 4, Section IV, p. 45 Ideas do not respect national frontiers, and this is especially so where language and other traditions are in common.

Chapter 5, Section I, p. 47 Marx profoundly affected those who did not accept his system. His influence extended to those who least supposed they were subject to it. Chapter 6, Section III, p. 63 The massive reduction in risk that is inherent in the development of the modern corporation has been far from fully appreciated. Chapter 8, Section II, p. 87 More die in the United States of too much food than of too little. Chapter 9, Section II, p. 103 We do not manufacture wants for goods we do not produce. Chapter 9, Section VI, p. 113 One man's consumption becomes his neighbor's wish. Chapter 11, Section II, p. 125 It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought. Chapter 11, Section IV, p. 130 In recent times no problem has been more puzzling to thoughtful people than why, in a troubled world, we make such poor use of our affluence . Chapter 12, Section VII, p. 145 A businessman who reads Business Week is lost to fame.

One who reads Proust is marked for greatness. Chapter 13, Section V, p. 155 It is in the long run that the corporation lives. Chapter 15, Section IV, p. 172 Very important functions can be performed very wastefully and often are. Chapter 17, Section I, p. 190 The family which takes it mauve and cerise, air conditioned, power-steered, and power braked automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved, made hideous by litter, blighted buildings, billboards, and posts for wires that should long since have been put underground. Chapter 18, Section I, p. 199 The greater the wealth the thicker will be the dirt. Chapter 18, Section II, p. 201 In a community where public services have failed to keep abreast of private consumption things are very different. Here, in an atmosphere of private opulence and public squalor, the private goods have full sway. Chapter 18, Section II, p. 203 Simple minds, presumably, are the easiest to manage. Chapter 19, Section V, p.

218 "Poverty" Pitt exclaimed "is no disgrace but it is damned annoying." In the contemporary United States it is not annoying but it is a disgrace. Chapter 23, Section VI, p. 258 Private enterprise did not get us atomic energy . Chapter 25, Section III, p. 274 Only men of considerable vanity write books; consistently therewith, I worried lest the world were exchanging an irreplaceable author for a more easily purchased diplomat. Foreword p. vii In economics, unlike fiction and the theater, there is no harm in a premature disclosure of the plot: it is to see the changes just mentioned and others as an interlocked whole. Chapter I, Section 3, p. 6 The inevitable counterpart of specialization is organization . This is what brings the work of specialists to a coherent result. If there are many specialists, this coordination will be a major task. So complex, indeed, will be the job of organizing specialists that there will be specialists on organization and organizations of specialists on organization. More perhaps than machinery, massive and complex business organizations are the tangible manifestation of advanced technology. p.

16 By all but the pathologically romantic, it is now recognized that this is not the age of the small man. Chapter III, Section 5, p. 32 Only in very recent times has the average man been a source of savings. Chapter IV, Section 2, p. 37 In the assumption that power belongs as a matter of course to capital , all economists are Marxians . Chapter V, Section 2, p. 49 The real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowly and deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius. The resulting performance, though less inspiring, is far more predictable. Chapter VI, Section 2, p. 62 There is no name for all who participate in group decision-making or the organization which they form. I propose to call this organization the Technostructure . Chapter VI, Section 7, p. 71 Few things in life can be so appalling as the difference between a dry antiseptic statement of a principle by a well spoken man in a quiet office, and what happens to people when that principle is put into practice.

BBC TV Adaptation, Episode 1 Ideas may be superior to vested interest . They are also very often the children of vested interest. Chapter 1, p. 11 It's a rule worth having in mind. Income almost always flows along the same axis as power but in the opposite direction. Chapter 1, p. 13 People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right. The sensitivity of the poor to injustice is a trivial thing compared with that of the rich. Chapter 1, p. 22 Economists are generally negligent of their heroes. Chapter 1, p. 27 Because of his compassion Owen was always in trouble with his partners. They would have much preferred a tough, down-to-earth manager who would get a days work out of the little bastards. Chapter 1, p. 30 (On Robert Owen ) Economics is not an exact science . Chapter 1, p. 36 Of all classes the rich are the most noticed and the least studied.

Chapter 2, p. 44 American university presidents are a nervous breed; I have never thought well of them as a class. Chapter 2, p. 60 The masters thought they were loved until one day one of their favorites farted loudly while serving dinner and the next day was gone. The very first manifestation of the classless society is the disappearance of the servant class. Chapter 2, p. 62 The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not. Chapter 2, p. 75 I've long believed alas, that in highly organized industrial societies, capitalist or socialist, the stronger tendency is to converge — that if steel or automobiles are wanted and must be made on a large scale, the process will stamp its imprint on the society, whether that me be Magnitogorsk or Gary, Indiana . Chapter 2, p. 84 All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. The violence of revolutions is the violence of men who charge into a vacuum. Chapter 3, "The Massive Dissent of Karl Marx" p.

96 Conscience is better served by a myth. Chapter 4, p. 111 It was in World War I that the age-old certainties were lost. Until then aristocrats and capitalists felt secure in their position, and even socialists felt certain in their faith. It was never to be so again. The Age of Uncertainty began. Chapter 5, p. 133 If inheritance qualifies one for office, intelligence cannot be a requirement. Chapter 5, p. 137 Money is a singular thing. It ranks with love as man's greatest source of joy. And with death as his greatest source of anxiety. Over all history it has oppressed nearly all people in one of two ways: either it has been abundant and very unreliable, or reliable and very scarce. Chapter 6, p. 161 Who is king in the world of the blind when there isn't even a one eyed man? Chapter 6, p. 180 Few can believe that suffering, especially by others, is in vain. Anything that is disagreeable must surely have beneficial economic effects. Chapter 7, p.

211 He enlarged perceptibly the scope for debate, liberalized appreciably the intellectual and cultural life of the country and proclaimed the obvious truth that, after an atomic exchange, little would distinguish the Communist ashes from the capitalist ashes. Chapter 8, p. 245 (on Nikita Khrushchev ) The myth that holds that the great corporation is the puppet of the market, the powerless servant of the consumer, is, in fact one of the devices by which its power is perpetuated. Chapter 9, p. 258 The privileged have regularly invited their own destruction with their greed. Chapter 10, p. 293 The Culture of Contentment (1992)[ edit ] Excessive acreages of unused buildings, commercial and residential were created. The need for such construction, given the space demands of modern business bureaucracy, was believed to be without limit. In later consequence, the solvency of numerous banks, including that of some of the nation's largest and most prestigious institutions, was either fatally impaired or placed in doubt. The lending of both those that failed or were endangered and others was subject, by fear and example to curtailment. The construction industry was severely constrained and its workers left unemployed.

A general recession ensued. Any early warning as to what was happening would have been exceptionally ill received, seen as yet another invasion of the benign rule of laissez faire and a specific interference with the market. However in keeping with the exceptions to this rule, there would be eventual salvation in a government bailout of the banks. Insurance of bank deposits — a far from slight contribution to contentment — was permissible, as well as assurance that were a bank large enough, it would not be allowed to fail. A preventive role by government was not allowed; eventual government rescue was highly acceptable. Ch. 5 The present age of contentment will come to an end only when and if the adverse developments that it fosters challenge the sense of comfortable well-being, Ch. 13 Interview with Brian Lamb , on Booknotes C-SPAN ( 1994-11-13 ) I was studying agriculture, how to produce better chickens, better cattle, better horses — horses in those days — better fruit, better vegetables.

This was in the early years of the Great Depression , and the thoughts crossed my mind that there wasn't a hell of a lot of use producing better crops and better livestock if you couldn't sell them, that the real problem of agriculture was not efficiency in production but the problem of whether you could make money after you produced the stuff. So I shifted from the technical side to, first, the study of agricultural economic issues and then on to economics itself. Broadly speaking, [Keynesianism means] that the government has a specific responsibility for the behavior of the economy, that it doesn't work on its own autonomous course, but the government, when there's a recession, compensates by employment, by expansion of purchasing power, and in boom times corrects by being a restraining force. But it controls the great flow of demand into the economy, what since Keynesian times has been the flow of aggregate demand. That was the basic idea of Keynes so far as one can put it in a couple of sentences. Going back to the most ancient times, national well-being, the national prestige depended on territory. The more territory a country had, the more income revenue there was, the more people there were to be mobilized for arms strength.

So we had an enormous sense of territorial conflict and territorial integrity, and that was unquestionably a part of the cause of war, coupled with the fact that there was a disposition in that direction by the landed class, a disposition to think of territorial acquisition and territorial defense and to think of the peasantry as a superior form of livestock which could be used for arms purposes. I react to what is necessary. I would like to eschew any formula. There are some things where the government is absolutely inevitable, which we cannot get along without comprehensive state action. But there are many things — producing consumer goods, producing a wide range of entertainment, producing a wide level of cultural activity — where the market system, which independent activity is also important, so I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I'm for that. Where the government is necessary, I'm for that. I'm deeply suspicious of somebody who says, "I'm in favor of privatization," or, "I'm deeply in favor of public ownership." I'm in favor of whatever works in the particular case. I write with two things in mind. I want to be right with my fellow economists.

After all, I've made my life as a professional economist, so I'm careful that my economics is as it should be. But I have long felt that there's no economic proposition that can't be stated in clear, accessible language. So I try to be right with my fellow economists, but I try to have an audience of any interested, intelligent person. C. Wright Mills , The Sociological Imagination (1959), p. 139 I knew Galbraith in the old days; he sat for some little time in my seminar. I must say I am not altogether surprised at what has happened; for I have always thought him a dull fellow, well intentioned enough, but a sort of pedant of New Deal economics — just the kind of man to upset the business community without himself bringing any startling administrative ability to offset the loss of that which he had antagonized. Lionel Robbins , in The Wartime Diaries of Lionel Robbins & James Meade 1943–1945, ed. Susan Howson and Donald Moggridge (1990) Political economy is an art as well as a science.

John Kenneth Galbraith has always been a creative artist in formulating theories of the social world. His fabrications constitute the stuff of economic science. Paul Samuelson , “Galbraith as artist and scientist” in Bowles, S., Edwards R. and Shepherd, W. G. (eds.) Unconventional Wisdom: Essays in honor of John Kenneth Galbraith (1989) His is an artistic, speculative mind. He sets up hypotheses which go beyond the data, and some of the greatest scholars in history have been of that type, … Part of Galbraith's strength is that he writes well. Some economists believe writing well is a defect that creates too much spurious impact on thought. If it's a crime, it's not one that many of my profession are guilty of. Paul Samuelson , quoted in Jonathan Steele, " Last of the old-style liberals ", The Guardian (2002) He doesn't get enough praise. The Affluent Society is a great insight, and has become so much a part of our understanding of contemporary capitalism that we forget where it began. It's like reading Hamlet and deciding it's full of quotations.

Amartya Sen , quoted in Jonathan Steele, " Last of the old-style liberals ", The Guardian (2002) Galbraith has often been compared to Keynes, and they had much in common. But the way they did their economics was very different. Keynes produced theories, Galbraith, theoretically-inspired sociology. Keynes thought that ideas ruled the roost; Galbraith thought it was structures of power. His was a non-Marxist version of class struggle, with the intelligentsia as the engine of social innovation and carrier of the "public purpose". Robert Skidelsky , “JK Galbraith's ideas will continue to inspire”, The Independent (May 01, 2006) What Galbraith understood, and what later researchers (including this author) have proved, is that Adam Smith's " invisible hand " – the notion that the individual pursuit of maximum profit guides capitalist markets to efficiency – is so invisible because, quite often, it's just not there. Unfettered markets often produce too much of some things, such as pollution, and too little of other things, such as basic research.

As Bruce Greenwald and I have shown, whenever information is imperfect – that is, always – markets are inefficient; hence the need for government action. Joseph Stiglitz , John Kenneth Galbraith understood capitalism as lived – not as theorized (2006) Galbraith's penetrating insights into the nature of capitalism – as it is lived, not as it is theorized in simplistic models – has enhanced our understanding of the market economy. He has left an intellectual legacy for generations to come. Joseph Stiglitz , John Kenneth Galbraith understood capitalism as lived – not as theorized (2006)

Question: Which economist wrote "The Affluent Society" in 1958?
Answer: J K Galbraith